


Another Song About Mexico

by Mireille



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-30
Updated: 2004-06-30
Packaged: 2018-08-15 20:01:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8070772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: Xander runs away from Sunnydale after the wedding-that-wasn't, and runs into an old friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Zortified in the 2004 Oz/Xander ficathon on LiveJournal (masterlist is at http://year-of-oz.livejournal.com/2124.html), who wanted, among other things, a happy ending. (And, fairly obviously, written under the influence of the Refreshments' _Fizzy Fuzzy Big and Buzzy_ album.)

Xander took another reluctant sip of his drink. He hated the taste of the stuff; it reminded him too much of the way his dad's breath smelled on a Saturday night, and he wasn't sure if it was the booze itself or the memories that left him feeling sick to his stomach. But he was in a bar in Mexico, because he'd run away from Sunnydale after leaving Anya at the altar--and shouldn't he _not_ still be wondering if she was the love of his life, after he left her like that?--and he kept thinking that he ought to be getting drunk, so he occasionally sipped warm liquor from the cloudy glass. 

He didn't even know where he was, exactly. Somewhere south of Tijuana, that was the only thing he was sure about. He'd crossed the border, and he'd just kept going, until the temperature gauge on his car started hovering near the red zone and he decided this little town was as good as any to spend the night in. He'd have asked someone what the name of this place was, but his Spanish was limited to ordering the #7 at El Mariachi and the little bits he remembered from the semester of Spanish he'd been forced to take in eighth grade, and he was pretty sure no one wanted to talk to him about chicken enchiladas or whether Guillermo's sister played soccer.

There weren't very many people in the bar; it was still pretty early, and the guys who were there looked like they'd settled down to some serious drinking right after breakfast. None of them had taken any notice of Xander, but he still flinched a little when they walked past him to get another beer or a shot of tequila. Serious drinkers had a history of not liking him very much. 

" _Una cerveza, por favor._ " 

That voice was weirdly familiar, not at all something Xander had ever expected to hear again, definitely not here. 

Xander looked up, and the face was familiar, too. Oz's hair was longer than he remembered, shaggy and reddish-brown; and for the first time that Xander could remember, his face was deeply suntanned. It made him look older, but then, Xander thought he probably looked older, too. He _felt_ older--ten, maybe twenty years older.

Oz didn't seem to notice him at first, just took a long drink from his bottle of beer and then bit one of the lime wedges from the plate the bartender had shoved in front of him, but then, as he reached for the bottle again, he stopped, blinking for a moment before offering Xander a crooked grin. "Long time, no see."

Xander grinned back; the surprise was enough to break through the layers of "totally depressed funk" that had built up around him in the past couple of days. "Whoa. You're about the last person I'd have expected to run into in... No, I guess of all the people I know, you're the one most likely to just randomly turn up in a bar in Mexico, but still. Whoa."

"Whoa indeed," Oz agreed, raising his bottle in a toast.

Xander lifted up his own glass in return, though he set it back down without actually taking a drink. "Just passing through?" he asked, after a while.

Oz shrugged. "I've been here two or three days. You?"

"I wasn't even going to stop, but then my car started overheating, and I thought this town looked okay." He shrugged. "Scenic. If you're into serious dust and mangy-looking chickens."

"It's okay," Oz said. "Peaceful. You can think."

"Not that into thinking right now, really."

"It's good for that, too."

There was a long silence, while Oz took another couple of swallows from his beer, and Xander just watched him. After a while, Xander tried tasting his drink again. He didn't like it any better than he had before, though, and he pushed it away.

"Heading out?"

Xander shrugged. "Hit my limit. I'm not much of a drinker."

Oz looked at the filmy glass on the bar. "Probably wise."

"Yeah." Xander slid down off the barstool. "Think I'm going to take a walk instead."

"Want some company?"

Xander nodded. "Why not?" Oz was easy enough to be around when you didn't want to talk, and Xander really didn’t want to be by himself. Maybe with Oz there, it'd be easier not to think about the wedding. The non-wedding. The disaster that hadn't actually been a wedding. God, when he screwed up, he _really_ screwed up, didn't he, and this was exactly why he needed some company, because when he'd started thinking about the wedding over the past few days, he usually ended up pulling over to the side of the road and crying like a baby.

The sun was going down when they left the bar, and there weren't any lights, except coming from the windows of some of the houses they passed as they walked along. It'd been several minutes before Oz broke the silence. "How's Willow?"

Not really an easy question to answer, Xander thought, but then again, there weren't any easy questions to answer any more. "She's... um. She's had a rough time lately. She got... addicted, to the magic, and it was pretty bad.... but she's, um, she's getting better now." And he'd walked out on her, too, because he didn't know if he was ever going to be able to go back to Sunnydale, and his best friend needed him, and god, he was about the worst human being in the world, wasn't he. 

Oz took that all in without comment, and then, when Xander was finished, sighed. "Good. That she'll be okay."

"Yeah." He didn't know how okay Willow was going to be, but he didn't know anything any more, so why bother correcting him?

They walked for a few minutes more before Oz asked his next question. "Is she still with--I can't remember her name, the blonde girl? The one...."

Xander wasn't looking at his face, but he could _hear_ the wince, knew how that sentence ended: the one Oz had tried to kill. "Tara. And, um, no. The magic thing, again. Willow did some stuff that Tara couldn't deal with." Oversimplification, again, but if he tried to explain everything, they'd be there for a year.

"Yeah. I get that."

And maybe he did, at that, Xander thought, because it'd been the wolf part of Oz that broke him and Willow up, after all, because Oz hadn't been able to control that, and it was a pity they hadn't had him around to talk to Willow about all of this, but then again, if Oz had been around, who even knew if it'd have happened in the first place. Not that it was Tara's fault, or anything; things just would have been different, and maybe they'd have been different enough.

They'd probably walked around the town square five times before Xander decided that if the conversation was going to go anywhere, he'd have to be the one taking it there. "Do you miss her? Willow, I mean. Do you miss her?"

Oz nodded. "Yeah. Of course I do. She's Willow. And it's not that I wanted to leave, it was just something that I had to do."

"I was supposed to be on my honeymoon right now."

If he'd been a normal person, Oz would have done a double-take, Xander was sure of it. "Did the subject change?"

"I was supposed to get married last week. To Anya. You remember her, right?" He didn't even wait for Oz to answer before he went on. "We were getting married. And I--I freaked out. There was this guy...." Xander trailed off; he wasn't sure how to explain what had happened at the wedding. Not that it'd freak Oz out, or that he'd be able to tell if it did, even. He just didn't know how to explain it. 

He hadn't realized that he'd stopped talking completely, though, until Oz cleared his throat. "There was a guy."

"Yeah. Um. Not like that," he said quickly. "I didn't--I mean, Anya didn't--it wasn't a _guy_ guy, it was this, um, he said he was me, from the future, and he showed me what life was going to be like if I married Anya, and I just couldn't do it." Oz listened, or at least looked like he was listening, while Xander told him about the visions. "And so I couldn't marry her," he finished. 

"Yeah. If you don't think you'd be happy together...."

"But the visions weren't real, and... I don't know. I love her. I really do. I just... I don't know if I love her enough."

"It's a big thing."

"Yeah, and I just--I don't know, I proposed when I thought we were all going to be dead in a few hours, and once we weren't--I just wasn't _sure_."

Oz just nodded, and they lapsed into silence for a while. Xander knew that the smooth, man of the world, thing to do would be to just walk along in that cool, cryptic silence that Oz had always been good at, but then again, Xander knew he wasn't either smooth or a man of the world. He was Xander, who babbled when he was uncomfortable, and he'd been uncomfortable for weeks now. Maybe months. No more than twenty years, he was pretty sure.

"I just, I don't know, I just kept thinking that I ought to be sure, and I wasn't, and I couldn't ask Anya to risk forever on something I wasn't even close to sure of."

"That sounds fair," Oz said when Xander paused for breath.

"And it still kind of freaks me out when I think about how she used to be a vengeance demon. I mean, not just when I think 'I just dumped a vengeance demon, I'm gonna be lucky if I live five minutes after I get back to Sunnydale.' More like, 'my girlfriend--my ex-girlfriend--used to eviscerate men for a living.'" He shook his head. "Seriously, from what she told us about what Cordy wished, Anya changed the whole world. And that's a lot of power, and when I think that that's the woman I was going to be pissing off on a regular basis for the rest of my natural life, well, it got kind of scary."

He sighed. "I mean, I know she's not one any more, but the fact that she used to go after men and make them suffer like that--I know she doesn't do it any more, it's just...."

Oz didn't say anything, and, guiltily, Xander realized that to a werewolf, all that probably sounded judgmental. After a moment, he added, "I know she wouldn't. It's just that I was freaking out about marrying her already, and, well, one more thing to freak about. Then I remember that I used to be a hyena-person, and it's not like I've gone around eating any live pigs lately, either, so...."

"Things don't always stay the same as they were," Oz said.

"I know. And that wasn't really it, anyway. There were all kinds of--there were other things, there were--I just kept thinking about, um, there's all kinds of stuff I wasn't sure of, stuff I haven't ever been sure of, and--" And he was noticing the weirdest things about Oz tonight, Xander thought: things like the way his hand had curved around the neck of his beer bottle, and the stark contrast between the tan on his neck and the white skin visible through a rip in his t-shirt, and the way his pupils had gone very wide and black as he looked at Xander in the growing darkness. This was exactly why he went around not being sure of things in the first place, because there was the noticing of stuff like that, and he didn't approve at all. Of the noticing, of the not-sure-ness, of any of it. 

"What kind of stuff?" Oz said, after a few very long moments of silence.

Xander took a deep breath. "You remember Larry, right? From the football team?"

Oz nodded. "He and Devon had a, um. A thing, kind of. Couple of weeks, right before prom."

"Um. Yeah. He kind of got the idea that I was--I was talking about the hyena-boy thing, it was when... it was before we knew about you. And he sort of. He misunderstood me. He _way_ misunderstood me."

One of Oz's eyebrows went up, but he didn't say anything. 

"Only, see, ever since then, and maybe a little before then, I don't know, I didn't write it all down in a diary or anything, but anyway, there's this other reason I didn't know if I ought to--" His heart was pounding, and he thought there was a better than even chance that he was going to throw up right here in the middle of the road. If he started running now, he could be back at his car before Oz figured out what he'd just said--before _he_ figured out what the hell he'd just said, for that matter--and the engine would have cooled off by now, and so he could just get out of here, be long gone and not have to deal with this at all.

But Oz was looking up at him with that crooked half-grin again, and it was completely impossible to wig him out, Xander was pretty sure of that, and so instead of running, he leaned down slightly and kissed him.

And Oz kissed back. Really kissed back, open-mouthed and wet and hot and Oz's tongue slick against his, and maybe it was a very good thing that Oz was impossible to wig, because someone needed to be un-wigged, and it was pretty damn definite that it wasn’t going to be Alexander L. Harris, who was already moving way past "wigged" and on to "hysterical."

Also, he thought with the part of his brain that apparently didn't understand what was going on, Oz was a really good kisser. 

Then the rest of his brain heard what that part was saying, and Xander jumped back, waiting for Oz to deck him, or say something, or _something_. But Oz just looked at him, and that was a lot worse than getting punched, Xander thought, because it didn't _finish_ this. 

"God. I'm sorry," he said, taking a step backward. "I don't know what--must have been the booze, it makes you do crazy stuff--"

"Yeah," Oz said, and there was that grin again. "You were really knocking them back."

Xander nodded, willfully ignoring the very strong possibility that there had been sarcasm in that statement. "Yeah. So. You've been here for a couple of days? What's there to do for fun around here?"

Oz shrugged. "Mostly, I think we just did it."

And no, he wasn't going there, he'd been steering the conversation away from there, so he just kept talking. "You must have stopped here for a reason. I mean, unless your van broke down, or something, since that's what happened to me. Not a van, because I don't have a van, but my car. And it didn't so much break down this time, it just overheated, and maybe I ought to go and check on it..."

"We could do that, yeah."

"We probably should. I probably should, anyway, but you don't actually have to come with me, because I can handle things myself. Um, I didn't mean _handle things_ , I meant deal with the car, because I know what I'm doing, and oh god, could I just _shut up_?"

Oz grinned at him. "Breathe."

"I'm breathing. I have to be breathing, because hey, I'm talking. Even vampires breathe when they talk, and did I tell you about Spike and Buffy yet?"

Shaking his head, Oz said, "No, I don't think so."

"You'd remember, trust me. See, about a year after you left, Spike started--"

Oz interrupted him. "I have a room, you know."

Xander blinked for a moment. "You have a what?"

"Room. Box-shaped thing. Has a bed in it."

"Which you're mentioning why?"

"It's pretty much the only thing in there." He grinned. "We've seen everything there is to see here, though. At least twice. And so if you want to keep talking, I thought we could go somewhere we could sit down."

"Talking? Yeah. Talking's good. As opposed to other things you could have been suggesting that we do with our mouths, and let's just forget I said that last part, okay?"

"Forgotten." Oz started walking again, this time down a side street. Xander followed him; he could hear himself talking--about Buffy, about Willow, about work, for god's sake--but he was completely unable to make himself shut up. Then again, the talking kept him from thinking all that much, and it covered up the way his heart was still racing from what was definitely shock and not anything else, so maybe that was all for the best. 

Oz's room was at the back of a small house, which seemed to be otherwise empty. "The guy who owns the cantina lives here," he said. "I played there a couple of nights; he's letting me sleep here." He'd been right about the room; it basically was a box with a bed in it. There was also a small table, with a dim lamp--the only source of light in the room--and a paperback book on it, and a backpack and a guitar case in the corner, and that was it. 

Oz sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at him. "You can sit down if you want."

"Uh, yeah. I'm good with standing."

"It's just sitting down, Xander. No big deal."

He nodded, finally, and sat down at the other corner of the bed. "This isn't bad, really," he said, looking around.

"I've slept in worse places, yeah." Xander didn't doubt that at all--Willow had said that Oz had been all over the place just in that short time between the first and second times that he left Sunnydale. And that had been years ago, so Xander was sure Oz had done a lot more traveling in the meantime.

After a few moments, Xander said, "I didn't come here because of, you know. What happened out there."

"Nah, I didn't think that."

There were a few moments of awkward silence, and then Xander said, "I don't, I mean, I'm _not_ , but sometimes I just, I wonder..."

"That's cool."

"Do you? Wonder, I mean?"

Oz shook his head. "Don't have to."

Xander scowled. "Of course not. You're too cool to ever wonder about anything like that. Nothing you have to worry about."

"Except being a werewolf?" 

"Uh. Okay, I guess you have stuff to worry about. But you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Oz said. "And I don't have to wonder because it was easier to just do it and find out."

Xander gaped at him for a minute. "You?" When Oz just shrugged, he went on, "Okay, I shouldn't be too shocked that you--I mean, you didn't punch me, which should have been a sign that you don't find guys totally repulsive. I just, um. It was _easier_ to find out?"

"Then you'd know," Oz pointed out, reasonably. 

"We're not talking about me!"

"Okay."

"I just don't know, and I'm not sure I want to know, either. I like things this way." Except he didn't, did he? "This way" was the way where he had run out on Anya, and where he'd been worrying for years that he ought to find out, and where he'd caught himself looking at someone a little long, or thinking about him the wrong way, and he didn't have anyone he could ask about what that meant, not even Willow. Nobody except himself, and he didn't have any answers. 

"Okay. You've got to find your own answers," Oz said. 

He didn't have answers, hadn't he just been thinking that? And he didn't have any way to get answers, not real answers--he could probably find something reassuring somewhere, but he'd never be certain, not if it was just something he read, or he had some shrink tell him.

But there was a way to find out for sure, he thought, and it was sitting next to him, looking across the room at a crookedly-hung watercolor of the village square. And so Xander grinned, very, very shakily. "Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?"

"It's a character flaw," Oz agreed, smiling, and that was when Xander slid over a bit on the bed and kissed him again. 

Oz didn't seem even slightly surprised, which would have annoyed Xander a little bit if it didn't mean that Oz was kissing him back again, and this time one of his hands was on the back of Xander's neck, which was good because it gave Xander a good reason not to pull away. He didn't want to pull away, not really, because this was good, it was incredibly good, and he wanted to do this, he just also wanted to run away screaming in terror because it wasn't supposed to be this good. It wasn't better than kissing Anya, but it was better than kissing Cordy, and that was absolutely, unbelievably wrong. 

Oz pulled away after a moment, looking at him, and Xander wondered if Oz was waiting for him to wig out. Realized that he was waiting for himself to wig out, as well, but it didn't quite seem to be happening. The wigginess was there, he could feel it, but for the moment, it was being held in check by the certain knowledge that if he freaked out, this was going to stop. 

So before Oz could say anything, could ask him if he was okay, or if this was what he wanted, or anything else Xander didn't want to try to talk about, he kissed Oz again, and this time he put his arms around Oz, because if he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. 

It was... different. Oz was smaller than Xander, and that was familiar, but the feeling of hard muscle under his hands instead of Anya's softer body wasn't, and the stubble against his cheek wasn’t, and the quiet moans Oz was making against his mouth were too low to be familiar, either. And then he was tugging Xander's t-shirt up over his head, and Xander put his hands over Oz's, because he wanted to stop him, they weren't going to do anything beyond kissing, but instead he found himself helping him get the shirt off. 

Oz grinned, and Xander definitely didn't let himself use the word "wolfish" to describe it, but he could have. Then he kissed Xander again, and started kissing his way down his neck, and then pushed him back down onto the bed and went on kissing his chest, and if Xander closed his eyes, he could have almost convinced himself that he was back in Sunnydale with Anya. 

He kept his eyes open, because he really didn't want to convince himself of that. That wasn't going to answer anything at all. And so he focused on the ways it was different, on the rasp of Oz's chin against his skin, and on the slight roughness of his lips, and the feel of his tongue swirling around his nipples, and when Oz looked up at him questioningly, Xander just nodded. 

Oz started moving downward a bit, and he unbuttoned Xander's jeans and tugged the zipper down, and Xander thought that if he was going to stop this, now would probably be the ideal time. But instead he just nodded again, and Oz pulled Xander's jeans down past his hips, and slid his boxers down, and then his tongue was circling around Xander's navel, darting inside, and Xander groaned. 

Oz grinned and did it again, and Xander closed his eyes, only to open them again when Oz slid farther down the bed, dragging his mouth along Xander's skin, along his stomach and down to his hip, and Xander wondered when Oz was going to get on with it. Wondered when he'd started wanting him to get on with it. 

He must have said something out loud, because Oz looked up at him, grinning, and took Xander into his mouth. Xander kept thinking that he ought to be freaking out right about now, because Oz's tongue was working against his dick, and he could feel himself starting to get hard, and yeah, this should be freak-out time, but it felt too good for him to care. He could hear himself moaning softly, and then Oz started to suck, and Xander groaned louder, gripping Oz's hair. And he supposed he'd found his answer now, because he'd been hoping he wouldn't like this, and he'd been really wrong about that.

He made himself watch Oz, raising himself up on his elbows so he could see the way he closed his eyes, and the hollowing-out of his cheeks as he sucked, the chipped dark-blue polish on his nails standing out vividly against the white skin where Oz was gripping his hips to hold him mostly still. 

Oz pulled away after a little while, just as Xander started to think he wouldn't mind having Oz's mouth--hot and wet and so careful (not a hint of teeth, and even though Xander had always liked that when Anya did it, he was grateful for the caution, in this case)--on him forever, and Xander thought, for a moment, that Oz had been thinking the same thing he had been: that now he knew, and so there was no need to keep going on with this. 

"Why'd you stop?" Xander asked, sounding a little whiny to his own ears, and Oz grinned. 

"I can go back to doing that," he said, grinning again when Xander nodded enthusiastically. "But I'd kind of like to fuck you. If you're cool with that."

From the way his cock twitched at the words, at least part of him was cool with that. "I... I don't know," he said after a moment.

"Is that the same as 'no'?"

"It's, um. The same as 'I don't know,'" Xander said, biting his lip as Oz's hand traveled slowly along the length of his cock. The guitar-string calluses on his fingertips were slightly rough on the sensitive skin, and Xander moaned a little. 

Oz looked up at that, and Xander realized suddenly that his eyes were dark--pupils dilated so much in the dim light that they looked almost black--and slightly unfocused, and his breathing was ragged, and Oz _wanted_ him. And Xander had a hard time saying no to that; the list of people who wanted him hadn't ever been all that long, and right now, it was down to just Oz, he was pretty sure. And god, Oz's hand felt good, and his mouth had been even better, and Xander nodded, after a minute, because he was so hard right now, and he needed more than just the slow slide of Oz's hand against his cock, he needed... "God, please. Anything, I just want..." 

Oz nodded, getting off the bed, and now Xander could see the bulge where his dick was straining against the zipper of his jeans. He watched him walk across the room to rummage in his backpack for a minute before turning back and tossing something onto the bed. Xander looked down to see a foil-wrapped condom and a small bottle of lubricant, and his stomach clenched a little bit, nervously, because this was suddenly a little too real. He made himself look back at Oz, instead, who'd just shucked off his t-shirt. Xander had seen Oz without a shirt before, of course, they'd had gym together, but the last couple of years had changed him as much as they had Xander. Where Xander had filled out, though, Oz was even thinner and wirier than he'd been back in high school, with a couple of scars Xander didn't remember. If Oz was more of a talker, he'd have asked about them. Well, he'd have asked later, because now Oz was stepping out of his jeans, and Xander's mouth was suddenly dry. 

Xander kicked off his sneakers, wriggling out of his jeans and not taking his eyes off Oz. There wasn't anything under the faded jeans except a very naked Oz, who grinned when he saw Xander's expression. "It's still cool?"

Xander gulped, nodding. "We're cool," he said, squirming until his boxers joined his jeans on the floor.

Oz rejoined him on the bed, kissing him again, and Xander lost a lot of the edge off of his nervousness with Oz's mouth on his. It was hard to remember what he'd been freaking out about when so much of him was telling his brain that the proper reaction was to lie back and beg for more. 

And now Oz was pushing him back down onto the bed, and still kissing him, and Xander tipped his head back when his lips grazed against his throat. He was nearly on top of him, his weight holding Xander on the bed--maybe not, if he struggled, but Oz was stronger than he looked, and so Xander couldn't be sure--and for a moment, Xander realized just how vulnerable he might be, pinned down naked on a bed with a werewolf's mouth at his throat. The thought made his cock throb, and Xander wondered when he'd started getting off on this baring-your-throat-to-the-pack-leader stuff. Then he thought about Anya, about Faith, hell, about Cordelia, and he wondered if that was something he could chalk up to "lingering after effects of hyena possession," or whether this was just one more way he was kind of fucked up. 

And then he stopped wondering, because Oz's fingers were cool and slick with lube, and he was stroking Xander's cock again, and Xander groaned, pushing up into Oz's hand. And then Oz moved his hand away, and down to trail his fingers over hypersensitive skin until oh god oh god oh god, one finger was pushing inside Xander, and he had to force himself not to try to push Oz away.

But Oz was kissing him again, and his other hand was back on Xander's dick, and the pain was starting to ebb enough that he was starting to realize that this wasn't something to fight against; in fact, it wasn't enough...

They seemed to spend ages like this, with Xander moaning and clutching at the rough blanket covering the bed and desperate for Oz to keep touching him, and Oz easing up every time Xander started to get close, because under that easygoing exterior, Xander thought, Daniel Osbourne could be a real son of a bitch. 

But now he was a real son of a bitch who had moved away from Xander slightly to tear open the condom package, and Xander watched as Oz put it on himself before reaching for the lube again. And then god, Oz was pushing into him, and it hurt and it was too much and he couldn't do this....

"Okay?" Oz murmured, and Xander considered telling him no, so that it would stop, but then Oz shifted his angle slightly, or Xander did, and Oz's cock bumped against something inside him that made him see stars.

"God. Yes," he gasped. 

Oz nodded, starting to move slowly, and it wasn't hurting any more; it wasn't comfortable yet, but it didn't hurt. And soon he was trying to rise to meet Oz's thrusts, and he could be worried about how very, very gay--or something--this definitely made him later. Right now, Oz was jerking him off in time with his thrusts into Xander, and Xander could feel himself slipping over the edge, looking up into his eyes and realizing Oz was as close as he was, that someone still wanted him, even now. And then he was coming in Oz's hand, and Oz thrust into him a few more times, eyes shut and lower lip caught between his teeth, and then he came as well, sprawling breathlessly on Xander's chest.

After a little while, he got up--Xander's eyes were closed, but he heard something that he was fairly sure was the sound of the condom hitting the wastebasket. Then the bed shifted again as Oz sat down. Xander kept his eyes closed; he was afraid--despite the relatively low probability--that Oz was going to want to talk about this, and he wasn't sure he could. He was definitely sure he didn't want to. 

"I know you're awake," Oz said. "Are we still okay?"

Xander gave up his pretense and nodded. 

"Good." After a pause, he added, "You can stay here tonight, if you need a place."

"Thanks," he murmured. It was better than sleeping in the back seat of his car. And not being made to go away immediately was a sign that he hadn't been terrible. 

They lay there in silence for a while. Xander could tell that Oz was still awake, though, and since he didn't think he was going to be able to fall asleep, he decided there was no point in silence. "What's it like--I mean, you must have seen most of the world by now, haven't you?"

"Some of Asia. A lot of Central and South America. That's it." 

"What's it like?" Xander repeated. 

"It works for me. I pick up languages pretty fast, so I can find work most places." He shrugged.

Xander nodded. "Maybe I should give it a try. I always wanted to see the world." After a moment, he added, "Anya's been everywhere. You know, when she was a demon? And aside from the parts with the blood and the entrails, it sounded pretty cool. At least to me. But then, before this week, I'd never been out of California, so what do I know?"

"It's not a bad life," Oz said. "Not for everyone, though."

"I get that." He shrugged. "There's not much for me in Sunnydale now, though. I mean, since I screwed things up with Anya--"

Turning over to look at him, Oz said, "You aren't going to be able to run away from her. She'll come right along with you."

Xander winced. "I was kind of hoping she wouldn't bother looking. At least for a while, until she gets past the 'turn him into a bug and squash him' stage." He sighed. "And maybe moves into the 'He's a jerk but I really miss him' stage."

"That's not what I meant," Oz said. "She'll be coming along in here." He thumped Xander lightly on the head. "Trust me on this one."

He sighed. "I guess you'd know, huh?"

He nodded. 

"You think I should go back."

"Not my decision."

"I don't know if she'll forgive me. I don't know if she'll take me back--I don't know if I even want her to take me back."

"What _do_ you know?" Oz asked. 

Forcing a grin, Xander said, "I know the answers to a couple of the questions I had earlier." Oz grinned back, and Xander was tempted to leave it at that, until honesty compelled him to add, "And I know I still love her."

"Then don't take too long to make your decision," Oz said. "Or she might make it for you."

"You think I should go back," Xander repeated. 

"I think it'll make it easier for you to decide," he admitted. "Might give you a better idea of whether things even can be worked out."

Xander thought about that for a while, just lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling. He still wasn't sure what to do; this hadn't solved any of his real problems. It didn't tell him what to do about Anya, at all.

But maybe Oz was right, and the best place to figure all that out was in Sunnydale. After another few moments, he nodded. "I probably should go back."

"Going to try to work things out?"

"I don't know. I'll figure out if I want to, and then figure out if she'll let me. But that's where I belong. And things aren't ever going to get better with her--even in terms of a cease-fire--with me here, I guess."

Oz nodded, reaching over to switch on the light before getting up and padding over to his pack again. Taking out a small notepad and a pencil, he scribbled something down and handed it to Xander. 

"An e-mail address?"

"I check it whenever I'm someplace big enough to have an internet café."

"What's it for?"

Oz grinned. "You can't tell me a story without letting me know how it ends." Then he added, "And I wouldn't mind hearing from a friend every now and then."

"I can't promise I can spell, but--yeah. Neither would I."

Oz hesitated for a moment, and then added, "If you decide she's not what you want, and I'm ever passing through.... I wouldn't mind doing this with a friend, either."

With a slight smile, he said, "You're on. I mean... if."

Curling in next to Xander's side, Oz said, drowsily, "Good. Now go to sleep. Long drive for you tomorrow."

After a while, Xander murmured back, "Yeah, you're right," before realizing that Oz had already fallen asleep.


End file.
